University of Sydney

This course gives students the tools to analyze, research and respond to real world issues such as globalization, crime, social justice, community breakdown, and racial, sexual and indigenous inequality.

This course examines the classification of natural hazards within Earth systems and explores key examples of geological, atmospheric, hydrological and biological hazards and explores the social relations and processes that turn hazard events into disasters. Given the vast majority of disasters are climate and weather-related, basics of weather, climate and climate change will be explored. Students will be introduced to key concepts in the study of hazards and disasters including underlying theories and models as well as critically interrogating concepts of vulnerability and resilience. Basic elements of the process of disaster risk reduction will be introduced. Case studies and examples from Australia and around the world will be drawn upon to unpack the nuances of hazard and disasters.

This course examines the relationship between terror, fear, and the exercise of social and political power. It explores themes of genocide, torture, war, terrorism, and violence, analyzing the production of the abject and victims as well as the symbolism and use of the body in the exercise and experience of power. 

This course examines the development of Romanticism as a major movement in 19th-century philosophy. Topics include the relation between art, nature, and scientific knowledge; the meaning of human freedom; skepticism; and the idea of a system of knowledge.

The fate of the European Union hangs in the balance. The crisis concerns more than economics. Do Europeans feel European, or is Europe simply a collection of states with a history of close interactions and devastating wars? Will Europe overcome its dilemmas? How do contemporary social theorists respond to the political, social, and cultural questions raised by the crisis? The course probes these issues to deepen understanding of Europe in the context of contemporary social theory

This course examines the historical and contemporary social determinants of Indigenous wellbeing. Through an exploration of holistic Indigenous health and wellbeing frameworks, students identify a range of successful strategies that facilitate self-determination and transform Indigenous health and wellbeing outcomes. 

This course examine core theories and frameworks used in geography to account for the social, spatial and economic unevenness in global development. it focuses on questions relating to who are the winners and losers from contemporary patterns of global economic change. This includes the analysis of relevant conceptual approaches to understand processes of global development and inequality (including comparative advantage, global value chain theory, developmentalism, structuralism, neo-liberalism, and post-development). Then, it adopts a livelihoods approach to better understand these broader processes from the perspective of individuals, households and communities. In general, issues are tailored to themes being played out in Asia-Pacific countries. 

In collaboration with an artist/artists in residence, students will experience training and/or rehearsal and/or creative development practices geared towards public performance. Guided by the artists and lecturers, students will participate physically, conceptually, and creatively through the course of intensive workshops, framed by preparatory and post-experience seminars.

This course examines academic, public and popular ideas about youth and practices of youth culture. It pays particular attention to the ways young lives are gendered and the role gender plays in the institutions and other contexts in which young people live. Other points of focus include changing conceptions of youth, relationships between policy and youth, images of youth and youth culture, and discourses on (im)maturity, training, and identity.

This course examines enlightenment and oppression, colonization and decolonization, the making and unmaking of nation states and the forging and unraveling of global relationships. It looks at social, cultural, political, environmental and economic histories in Asia, Europe, the Americas and Australia.